Judge Shepherd Barclay of the State Supreme Court was another of the brilliant players of the Union Club, and sustained the difficult position of pitcher with great effect. He was also a fine fielder.

-St. Louis Republic, February 9, 1895

Barclay, who played with both the Unions and the St. Louis University baseball club, is, in my opinion, most famous for pushing the idea that Jeremiah Fruin had introduced the New York game to St. Louis. He was very wrong in that but that doesn't take away from the fact that he was a fine pitcher who went on to a distinguished legal career.

I actually have a copy of Shepard Barclay's biography. Privately published in St. Louis in 1931, the book appears to have been edited by William L. R. Gifford. The biographical sketch was prepared by Clarence E. Miller and the book also includes a brief essay on Barclay's legal career written by S. Mayner Wallace. The primary source for the biography was Barclay's private papers and the book was written at the request of Edward Mallinckrodt, Barclay's nephew, "(in) affectionate remembrance of a long and happy relationship."

A couple of interesting things based upon reading the book:

-With regards to Barclay's parentage, there appears to be a reason why it wasn't mentioned in other sources. It's a bit complicated and a tad scandalous. Shepard Barclay was born on November 3, 1847 to Britton Armstrong Hill and Mary Shepard Hill. Britton Armstrong Hill was a lawyer from New York who had come to St. Louis in 1841 and married Elihu Shepard's daughter on October 8, 1845. The marriage was not a happy one and ended on March 2, 1849 when the two were divorced "by act of the state legislature." On June 26, 1854, Mary Shepard married David Robert Barclay, a lawyer and native of Pennsylvania, who had moved to St. Louis in 1850.

-While he was known as Shepard Barclay to his teachers and friends, the man's legal name was actually Shepard Hill. In 1868, "upon reaching his majority," he had his name legally changed from Hill to Barclay.

-There are a couple of references to baseball in the book although not much in the way of detail. Miller quotes Barclay, with regards to his days at St. Louis University, as saying that "(in) 1867, the year of my graduation, we held the local college championship in base ball, after a great game with our leading rival in St. Louis." This game is most likely the one between SLU and Washington University that Kelsoe wrote about in his book. There is also a reference to Barclay enjoying athletics and the outdoors and as someone who had a lifelong love of baseball. There is no mention of his having played baseball at the University of Virginia or in Europe. There also is no mention of the Union Club.

-Of the top of my head, I can't imagine Barclay having played that much with the Union Club or having been a rather prominent member. I can't imagine him playing with the club before or during the Civil War and Kelsoe wrote that Barclay pitched for SLU before joining the club. So based on that, Barclay most likely didn't join the Union Club until 1867. In December of 1869, he left for Europe and would not return home until May of 1872, by which time the Union Club had stopped playing baseball. At best, if Kelsoe is correct and Barclay didn't join the club until after he graduated from SLU, Shepard Barclay was a playing member of the Union Club for two years.

Judge Barclay was born in St. Louis, Missouri, November 3, 1847. He was descended from a family of pioneer American settlers. Following a preparatory education in St. Louis schools, he obtained his A.B. degree at St. Louis University in 1867. He attended the University of Virginia, where he obtained a degree in 1869 and from 1870 to 1872 studied at the University of Berlin and in Paris. Later he returned to St. Louis University, where he attained the LL.D. degree.

On June 11, 1873, he was married to Miss Katie Anderson here. After practicing law from 1872 to 1882, he was elected Circuit Judge in 1882. In 1888 he was elected Justice of the Supreme Court of Missouri. He owned the distinction of being the youngest man ever elected to the Supreme Court. In 1897 he was chosen Chief Justice. After serving for a year, he resigned from the Supreme bench to resume his practice.

At the time he was elected to the circuit bench here he was also the youngest judge ever chosen for that position at that time.

In 1901 Judge Barclay was appointed Judge of the St. Louis Court of Appeals, but resigned that post in 1903 to return again to his practice.

Before his death, Judge Barclay was one of seven present subscribers of the Central Law Journal who had been subscribers since the Journal's initial publication.

The loss of a leader in the community and of a lawyer with the highest ideals will be keenly felt. It is a compensating thing, however, that his activities will be an inspiration to others to carry on in his footsteps.

-The Central Law Journal, December 5, 1925

Barclay is a fascinating person and a significant figure in the history of 19th century St. Louis baseball. He was a member of the first nine and an officer with the Baltic Club during the Civil War, pitched for the St. Louis University baseball club, and played on some of the great post-war Union Club teams. He was an important figure in both the pioneer era and the amateur era.

His true significance, however, lies in the fact that he was one of Al Spink's sources for the early history of St. Louis baseball in The National Game. For years, a lot of what we knew about St. Louis during the 1860's was a result of Barclay's testimony. Modern research has proven that Barclay was wrong in a lot of the details of what he was telling Spink but that's understandable given that Barclay was trying to remember things that had happened fifty years in the past. But it's because of people like Shepard Barclay, Edmund Tobias, and Merritt Griswold - men who where there when the game first began in St. Louis and who played during the pioneer era - that we were given our first glimpse of the early game in St. Louis. What I've done and what other baseball historians are doing is simply building upon their work.

A match game of base ball came off yesterday on the old Commercial grounds, between the Baltic (second nine) and the Independent Base Ball Clubs, which resulted in the defeat of the latter.

-Missouri Republican, June 5, 1863

There's a lot of stuff going on here so I'm going to the bullet points.

The Baltic Club had a second nine, which is useful information. I'm operating here under the assumption that there was a serious lack of manpower in St. Louis. I believe that the war took tens of thousands of young men out of the city and that this depleted the available player pool. That's why I think we're seeing all of these Junior clubs and Young clubs - there wasn't enough "older" players to fill up the club nines. The clubs had to grab younger players and put together juvenile clubs. But a club had to have a first and second nine. If they didn't, who was playing on the club days? When a club got together, they had to have at least 18 guys so they could play a game, which was what a club day was all about. So a club had to have, at minimum, 18 members and, to be on the safe side, a club really needed about 30 guys - just to make sure they could put two teams together any time the club was scheduled to meet. A first nine, a second nine, and a junior nine is twenty-seven players. Feel free to check my math but I think that's probably how these clubs were operating. They were using the juniors to make up a thirty percent reduction in the number of baseball-playing-aged males that was caused by the war.

This is the first and only reference I have to the Independent Club so give them a big round of applause and thank them for playing because we aren't going to see them again.

We have a reference to "the old Commercial grounds," which I have to believe is a reference to Lafayette Park. That was, prior to the occupation of the park by Union troops in August of 1861, the old Commercial grounds. I can't imagine what else that could mean.

Shepard Barclay makes an appearance as secretary of the Baltic Club and the captain and pitcher for their second nine. Barclay is a favorite of mine. He was, for a rather brief moment, the Chief Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court and is responsible for the creation of the Fruin Myth, which is a rather widespread canard stating that Jeremiah Fruin was the first to bring the New York game to St. Louis. God bless Shepard Barclay, who was a pretty darn good ballplayer, but his memory failed him with regards to the early history of the game in St. Louis.

And we're into June of 1863 with still no reference to Jeremiah Fruin playing baseball in St. Louis. Without looking it up, I'm pretty sure that Fruin was in St. Louis by 1861 but I don't think I have any contemporary references to him playing with the Empire Club until 1865. He was serving in the Quartermaster Corps in St. Louis during the war so it may be possible that he didn't start playing baseball in the city until after the war ended. I'll wait until I get to that first Fruin reference to really get into this but the idea that Fruin didn't play baseball in St. Louis until after the war was over really changes his historical legacy. But let's wait on that one.